Iron Chef Competition Round 1

On Monday, June 25th, a fellow classmate Melanie and I, along with 25 other groups of two, competed against each other to win the first round of Iron Chef through school. There were so many groups competing that we had to cook in flights. 1st flight started at 2pm, last flight started at 2:50pm. We got 5 minutes to get our station ready (Mise en Place), then 55 minutes to make something outstanding out of random ingredients to impress the judges. Unfortunately, I did not converse with my underclass partner except when she said,"I am looking for a partner", and I said, "hey, I am too." Turns out that she had no culinary experience prior to school, much like myself (not counting Subway 9 yrs ago!) , but we have taken some serious classes that she hasn't got to yet.
Anyways, our ingredients to work with were a Cornish game hen, an egg, 1/4 bunch of broccoli, a sprig of lavender and a sweet potato. There was a cart of Mirepoix (onion, carrots, and celery) , potatoes, and herbs and spices that we also got to pick from. The stove was made up of maybe 18 burners and a grill. Since we were closest to the grill that there was no room anywhere else, we just laid our pans right on the grill. I threw the hen in a court bullion (aromatic seasoned water or stock) and let it roll. Then I used the same water to blanch the slow cooking veggies (cut sweet potatoes and carrots) in after I took the hen out. I De-boned the par-cooked hen and instructed Melanie how to cut up the rest of the vegetables best for the stir fry while I cut the hen up. Then I started the sauce. I took some wine, some garlic paste mixed with the lavender and started to reduce it. I had Mel make a beurre maine(flour and butter paste) to thicken it later and sent the guy running around taking pictures to find me some ginger...fresh or powdered. We used the egg in the stir fry and threw the chicken in. All while watching the clock as the Chef instructor monitoring yelled out how many minutes each team had left. We made two identical plates to serve to two chef instructors and another group of "celebrity" guests (2 Gen-Ed teachers). The ending result was a very potent sauce and diced hen with stewed vegetables. But together, it was surprisingly very accurate on flavor. BUT, we needed higher heat and since the stir fry was cooked in a pan over the grill, we didn't obtain the required heat, and we lost points for that. We also lost points because we were so worried about getting started that we forgot to get a towel and sanitation bucket for spills and cleanup. Only 8 teams advanced and unfortunately, we weren't one of them. But it was fun and I definitely will try again--and learn from my mistakes.

I think it looks good...